


The Stillness Between

by depressaria



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aftermath of Possession, Community: hc_bingo, Family Issues, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lavender Eyes' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-04 01:17:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12760146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depressaria/pseuds/depressaria
Summary: Maybe the girl she’d been had died when DG let go of her hand, and maybe the woman she’d become while possessed had died when DG took her hand again. Maybe she should take it as a second chance, and try to forget all of the pain it’d taken to get there.While trying to come to terms everything she did while possessed by the witch, Azkadellia learns that darkness may run in the family.





	The Stillness Between

**Author's Note:**

> For the ‘family’ square on my hc_bingo card. I haven’t tagged this as an AU because it’s not (IIRC) directly contradicted by the miniseries, but I’m also not certain it’s the most canon compliant thing I’ve ever written.
> 
> Warnings: a mother intentionally allowing a child to be possessed by an evil witch, and not feeling at all bad about it

She’d expected it to take time for the O.Z. to heal. Although she was assured at every turn that no one blamed her—a concept so laughable that she wouldn’t have believed it even if everyone hadn’t gone so overboard with their reassurances that it became painfully obvious their hearts weren’t in it—it came as no surprise that her years as their tormentor had left a scar upon her reputation. And though the royal family had a certain measure of control over how those in their employ behaved towards Azkadellia, there was no silencing the public. Which was, of course, correct; they had no right to silence the citizens of the O.Z. as Azkadellia had during her reign, and it was understandable that not all would be pleased that Azkadellia seemed to be facing no repercussions for her actions this last decade.

So it went without saying that Azkadellia was unfit to rule. Mother had retaken the throne until such time as DG could complete her studies. Azkadellia herself had placed the crown upon the Queen’s head, and had been the first to kneel before her when the words were spoken. 

The throne was not something she had any desire for, not any longer. Like any child, she’d once harbored fantasies of a long and fruitful reign, but recent events had made such thoughts seem more like nightmares. Had her reign continued any longer, the O.Z. would be in eternal darkness, and even more ruinously chaotic than it already was. 

Thoughts of what might have been often kept her up at night. She imagined futures where DG hadn’t managed to escape the tomb before suffocating and had been unable to interfere with her plans, or where Mother had failed to revive DG when she had killed her all those years ago, and had lived out her final decades utterly hopeless, awaiting Azkadellia’s apocalypse like a cow waiting for the slaughter. 

Similar thoughts seemed to haunt the Queen, for their interactions since the aversion of the eclipse had become even colder than they had been when she was Azkadellia’s hostage instead of her mother. They saw each other only when necessary or by accident—at meal times, and at events where they were required to appear as a family unit. Most awkward were the times when they passed each other in the hall, and Azkadellia tried to make eye contact, except when the Queen looked up to meet her eyes it was with an expression of near-revulsion, little trace of even the cursory tenderness she remembered from her childhood. 

“She doesn’t hate you, you know,” DG told her over lunch one day. She’d packed a picnic basket and insisted they eat at Finaqua. Finishing its restoration had been her first project. Even with so many years lost to Azkadellia’s betrayal, she wielded magic skillfully. With a few more years’ practice, she would surpass Azkadellia, and probably become more powerful than the Queen had ever been. 

“She blames me,” Azkadellia said. “As she likely should. I was supposed to be watching you that day. If I had just made you turn back, none of this would have happened. You would never have died and been sent away, she would still have her magic, and the O.Z. would probably be in a golden age.” 

“Hey, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I’m the one who let go.”

“You were a child.”

DG sounded almost incredulous when she said, “So were you.” 

~*~*~*~

Most of her time was consumed by rumination. She no longer had political duties, and far too much of her time was her own. There was only so long one could study without going insane, and she had no interest in socialization. At first she made an effort to mend bridges, if only for the benefit of those who needed to believe she had changed for their own sake. But too many of her conversations ended awkwardly at best. 

DG was most understanding, which meant their conversations left her feeling the most vulnerable, and though DG was determined enough to mend their relationship that she didn’t often let Azkadellia wriggle out of social situations, and though she was glad for the interaction once it had passed, the process of going through it left her emotionally exhausted. Too emotionally exhausted to talk to the Queen, or to Tutor, or to any of the staff who’d defected after she’d been deposed. 

DG’s friends were, of course, out of the question. Raw had wanted to help restabilize the kingdom, but had decided it was more important to return home with Kalm. Cain was professional, but she could tell that when he looked at her all he saw was the life he’d lost under her regime, the son who’d been ruined by it, and the madness from his captivity that he kept so tightly and so carefully locked up and buried somewhere it would never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. He probably didn’t consciously judge, but the thing was that she wanted him to. She deserved his judgment. 

Glitch reacted to her in what she thought was the most appropriate way, though she doubted he fully intended it. He sometimes forgot—only momentarily—that Azkadellia and the witch had been separated. Even though it came back to him quickly enough, she cherished those moments of distrust, and even once those moments passed, a certain tension remained. Even if one accepted that Azkadellia herself bore no responsibility for what happened, that it was all the witch’s doing, it was still her face the witch had worn while committing these atrocities. It had been her mouth that gave the order to mutilate Ambrose’s brain, and despite what she had done to him he still remembered better than anyone else what she had been, what she perhaps still was. 

When they said that those seeking redemption should make reparations to those they’ve wronged, they obviously weren’t thinking of people guilty of wrongs that couldn’t be righted. She couldn’t put Ambrose’s brain back into his head, or give Cain his wife back, or bring back the psychics who’d been tortured to death under her orders. She couldn’t return the life she’d taken from DG, or the health and magic their mother had sacrificed to save her. 

At times it seemed she couldn’t do much of anything at all. All she seemed able to do was to limit her public appearances, so that her face could not too often dredge up unpleasant memories in those who’d suffered under her reign.

~*~*~*~

The witch had not been so kind as to prevent her from forming memories of the things she did with her face, but Azkadellia’s memories dimmed with time, as anyone else’s did. Dimmest were her memories of her rise to power, after DG’s “death” and the loss of the Queen’s magic. 

Either way, it came as a surprise when, while freeing her quarters of items that reminded her too much of her possession, she found the diary. 

It had been full of personal musings rather than political ones, which was what had caused her to not finish reading it. The entries spanned back to before DG’s birth, and discussed mainly the mundanities of the royal family’s life. What they had joked about over dinner, how Azkadellia was progressing in her studies, how heartening or tiresome court had been that day, how well the management of the household was going.

After DG was born, the entries changed to more abstract musings. What improvements to the O.Z. she thought possible during her reign, how much influence she thought she could have over her heir’s future reign, whether or not it was possible to refine the processes of using an empath to read a mind or creating a headcase, whether or not she still found the Mystic Man’s counsel useful. 

And again and again, the entries returned to the subject of the nursery rhyme. Except in her diary, the Queen made it seem far more significant. Azkadellia did not want to say that she spoke of it as if it were a prophecy, but there was a gravity to her tone that a simple nursery rhyme should not have warranted. 

And then, near the end of the diary, she discussed what had happened. 

If the diary was genuine, the Queen had known. She had known that there was a witch imprisoned somewhere who her children could easily accidentally free, had known what the witch would do were she freed, had known that the eclipse was close enough that the witch would try to take advantage of it. 

She had neglected their language studies in hopes that they would not comprehend the warnings on the walls of the prison until it was too late. 

If it was true, it was sick, and for the first time in a long time she felt genuine anger—not guilt, or shame, or resentment, or a torpid irritation—beginning to roil in her chest. 

~*~*~*~

Feeling bolder than she had in weeks, she marched into the Queen’s study and dropped—with what was probably excessive force—the diary onto her desk. 

She spared barely a glance at it before turning back to her paperwork. “I thought you would have burned that thing when you first confiscated it.”

Azkadellia hadn’t burned any of the Queen’s things; there had been too much at stake for her to risk sacrificing anything that could help her find the emerald. But she wasn’t going to let herself be goaded into an argument on a different topic. “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “I read it, Mother.” When the Queen didn’t look up, she added, “You knew how to free me.”

“And?” 

“You could have prevented all of this. You let me be a monster.” 

“Well, I couldn’t very well get you to hold your sister’s hand when I knew you were out for her head, could I?”

“No, you knew before then. From the very beginning, when I returned at Finaqua. You knew I was not myself. You—“ Realization dawned, and it felt more like the beginning of eternal darkness than the actual eclipse had been. “You knew she was trapped there,” she said. Nausea coiled in her stomach. “That’s why you brought us there.”

The Queen didn’t reply. She didn’t need to.

“You knew what she would do were she to be released,” Azkadellia said. 

“All happened as it had to happen,” the Queen said. “It was for the good of the O.Z.” She didn’t even glance up from her paperwork. 

“The O.Z. is in shambles,” Azkadellia replied. Then, after a moment, she added, “I was your daughter.” 

The Queen glanced up then, wearing a condescending smile. The expression looked wrong against her delicate-featured face. She had always had a face that seemed fragile as well as noble, even before she had to give up her magic to save DG and had become genuinely frail. It was a face that made others desire to protect her even as it compelled them to bend their knee to her. That was a quality that Azkadellia’s face had never quite possessed. DG had inherited more of that gentle bearing than she had.

“Az,” she said with just the barest hint of loftiness, “Did you forget your studies already? Sacrifice is integral to ruling. I taught you that.” 

“I was your daughter,” Azkadellia repeated, with less conviction this time, and the Queen scoffed.

“Don’t be selfish, Az. You were hardly the one who suffered most at the witch’s hand, and you’re free of her now. You got what you wanted.” 

Azkadellia was silent for a long moment, feeling half numb and half like every cell in her body was vibrating. “Did you expect it to kill me?” 

The Queen held her gaze steadily.

That was all she needed to know.

She fled, then, leaving the Queen alone in her study.

Once she had sequestered herself in her quarters, it was a long time before she left. 

~*~*~*~

She still went about her normal routine—at least, what routine she had after giving up the throne. She wasn’t a child who hid in her room whenever she had an argument with someone. But she went about it almost in a daze, never talking unless directly addressed, and even then sometimes not. 

It went without saying that she had no contact with the Queen. 

It was an odd feeling, to go about life feeling both nothing and everything. On the one hand, the days seemed to blend together, they felt so uniformly unremarkable. On the other hand, her stomach was in knots that she could feel beneath the numbness. At the end of each day, she could scarcely recall exactly who she had talked to or what they had talked about, or what she had eaten at breakfast, or what the weather had been like. But she could recall each regret with startling clarity, and the guilt and anxiety would burrow under the protective numbness and consume her despite her efforts to close herself off. 

She knew that she perhaps slept too much, and that she would likely feel more present were she to make more of an effort to interact wth those around her, but each day she came to the conclusion that if it it hurt this much to exist with her heart armored, it would hurt doubly so to try and open herself up. 

~*~*~*~

It all came to a head when DG cornered her in the library one day. 

“I’ve been trying to give you space, because I want to be your sister again but I don’t know the right way to do it. But something’s been eating you up and I think maybe you need to talk about it.” 

Looking into her face, with its soft features and guileless eyes, she felt suddenly exhausted. It was too great a burden to both carry and hide. 

She couldn’t bring herself to actually say the words, so instead she pulled out the Queen’s diary from where she’d kept it hidden behind her bookcase, and handed it to DG. 

Despite the tense atmosphere still hanging over the room, DG smiled wryly. “Feels really awkward, reading my mom’s diary.” But she opened it anyways and began flipping through, and as she did a little frown started forming on her face. “Az, she’s talking about removing convicts’ brains in here. I thought that didn’t happen until after you locked her up.” 

“No,” Azkadellia said. “Mother instituted that early in her reign. I suppose you wouldn’t remember. You were too young to be taught such morbid things.” 

DG’s frown only deepened as she read. When she got near the end, her jaw tightened. “I’m going to go talk to her.” 

The panic that coiled in her stomach caught her so off-guard that she grabbed DG’s arm as DG stood to leave. “Don’t say anything to her.” 

“Az,” DG said, her face softening. “It’ll be okay. I’m just going to ask her about it, get her side of the story. Or her explanation of her side, anyways. For all we knew we’re totally misreading this. I mean, she’s not the easiest lady to understand.”

“And what if we’re not misreading it?” She already knew that they weren’t, that it was true, but it was easier to play along. 

DG’s jaw tightened, but she managed a fair facsimile of a careless shrug. “Then you can’t let her just sweep it under the rug, right?” 

“I killed her daughter, imprisoned her for a decade, and destroyed the kingdom she worked so hard to build. I think she’s earned the right to do what she wants.” 

“It wasn’t you,” DG said. Then she added, more fiercely, “And if what’s in this diary is true, she planned for all that to happen. You don’t get to hold a gun to someone’s head and tell them to punch you, and then go around telling everyone what an asshole they are for punching you.” 

“It wasn’t like that.” Her hand was still on DG’s arm and she knew she should let go but it felt like if she did some spell would be broken, and they’d never be able to talk again or they’d talk too much about it, whichever was worse. “You’re all treating me like I was a prisoner in my own body, a shell that the witch was piloting but _it wasn’t like that_ , DG. She whispered to me and she took the reigns when she had to but I was me. I wanted to do what I did. I _liked_ what I did. I believed in it.” 

The frown was back on DG’s face, but there wasn’t anger in her eyes. Pity, maybe. Or revulsion. “You were a kid,” she said finally. “Being raised with that kind of evil in your head, it’d mess up anyone’s sense of right and wrong. And you broke free in the end, when it mattered.” 

“That just means I always had the ability to break free. If I’d done so sooner, we wouldn’t have ruined so many lives. But I must not have wanted to stop.” 

“Az, no.” She dislodged Azkadellia’s hand from her arm, but just so that she could hold it between her own. “You were a kid, okay? It wasn’t your fault that the witch messed with your mind. You’re a victim in all this, too.” 

It still didn’t feel right, but it took her long enough to process the motion that DG was able to give her hand one last squeeze before turning to head towards the Queen’s study.

So she followed a few paces behind as DG made her way to the study, and then once the study door had shut once more after barely opening to admit DG, she stood anxiously outside, wanting to go in and yet unable to touch the doorknob. If she let whatever words were passing between her mother and sister remain unheard, she could pretend that the argument was about something else—that DG’s objection was simply to the methods by which the Queen had once punished criminals, and not to anything that had anything to do with Azkadellia. Anything but thinking that the family was, once again, being destroyed because of Azkadellia. 

It felt cowardly, but DG seemed to bear no ill will towards her for it; when she finally stormed out of the study, she seemed to be still slightly angry, but mostly relieved. 

“My coronation’s in three months,” DG said. 

And that, apparently, was that. DG gave Azkadellia a quick hug that Azadellia was too stunned to return, and then left, likely to do her own brooding. Azkadellia was left standing there awkwardly instead of anxiously, with the dim sense of reprieve mostly eclipsed by a growing numbness. 

The presence of the Queen behind the doors to her study no longer seemed heavy and oppressive. 

~*~*~*~

Azkadellia found herself beginning to seek closure more than she sought solitude. 

Instead of just sitting in on council meetings, she started offering up opinions—particularly opinions on how to fix what she had broken. Like the eruption in the population of headcases, or the still-growing problems of vapors addiction, or the reconstruction of the torched orchard. 

And people listened, was the thing. They didn’t cower, but neither did they dismiss her outright. It was too early to say either way, but she left the meetings feeling clear-headed and more optimistic than she had in years. She might not be able to make up for everything, but she could certainly spend the rest of her life trying to, and that thought was somehow a great comfort. 

She found herself gravitating sometimes to the brain room. It helped to focus her rumination on what she could fix rather than what she could not; she couldn’t undo what she had done or what had been done to her, but she could wok to ensure that it didn’t happen again.

On one such excursion, she entered the brain room to find that Glitch was already there, 

“I imagine it’s unnerving,” she said by way of greeting. 

“Not particularly. Relatively speaking, anyways. Most everything is a bit unnerving when you spend most of your time trying to track down your own train of thought.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said automatically. 

“It wasn’t you,” he said, just as automatically. There was nothing truly spiteful about the way he said it, but there was an edge of faint bitterness that she suspected might never go away. 

It wasn’t that she blamed him if he held onto some resentment. There were things that had been done to her that she didn’t think she’d be able to forgive—and things she had done that she didn’t think she’d be able to forgive herself for—so she felt he was entitled to begrudge what had been done to him, if that was what he needed to do to keep going. Forgiveness wasn’t something she could curry like a diplomat’s favor.

Still, she couldn’t prevent the guilt that flared in her stomach. “I want to make it right, if I can,” she said impulsively. “Maybe try and put your brain back in your head. I know it’s never been done before, but there must be some way. I’m sure if DG and I worked together, we could figure it out.” 

His gaze drifted past her to the tank that held his brain. “I’m not entirely certain I’d want that,” he finally said. “Ambrose died a long time ago. I don’t want to kill off this version of myself, too.” 

“I never thought about it that way,” she said. 

Maybe the girl she’d been had died when DG let go of her hand, and maybe the woman she’d become while possessed had died when DG took her hand again. Maybe she should take it as a second chance, and try to forget all of the pain it’d taken to get there. 

If Glitch could manage it after everything she’d done to him, she had no excuse. 

He smiled ruefully. “Bet I never would have thought of that before.”

“No,” she agreed. “Probably not.” 

~*~*~*~

The Queen had two lovely daughters.

After awhile, it stopped mattering which had been drawn to light and which to darkness.


End file.
